


The Furies' Nest

by Rahn (Rahndom)



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahndom/pseuds/Rahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim only wanted to follow Batman and Robin on their adventures in Prague, instead he loses his innocence and creates a family for himself away from the prying eyes of the Bat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect, it had been a surprisingly bad idea, but when faced with the knowledge that Batman and Robin were going abroad on League’s orders to Prague and knowing his parents were due to travel to that same city at the very same time, Tim’s priorities were more than skewed.

Which was the reason why he had marched into his parent’s study, head held high and stated that, since they were home he was going to ask for his birthday present right away instead of sending the list to their PA tomorrow.

Jack had raised an eyebrow, obviously confused and Janet had frowned at him with curiosity.

“We believed you wanted a darkroom for your photography,” she stated, her hand resting on Jack’s shoulder. “As you know you can only ask for one big present for your birthday, Timothy.”

Tim nodded, ignoring the painful twisting inside his chest as their parents stared back at him, his birthday was in four months and he would have liked to believe that his mother of all people would at least remember the date of the day she had to pass something the size of a small melon through an opening the size of an olive. To get what he wanted, however, he needed to convince his parents that his birthday was that very same week and it hurt to think it was working, because they couldn’t care less about the actual date of his birth.

He sighed.

“While a dark room would be beneficial to my hobby I decided I want to accompany you to Prague. I am not in the mood to parade around with you both, but the city holds one of the most influential colleges in the world for advanced linguistics and I would like to wage my opportunities for further education in there,” he explained, his eyes holding his father’s and avoiding his mother’s. Janet could spot his deceit with a glance alone.

“We will not return to America in almost a year, Timothy,” Janet commented. Tim shrugged.

“I would only need a week,” he reasoned. “Then I shall board the plane alone and come back.”

“You are still a minor,” Jack commented, blinking.

“You would just have to appoint an adult to pick me up at the airport upon my return, as per the law, we all know I’m mature enough to travel alone already,” Tim argued back, his face still an expressionless mask.

Janet continued to examine her child in silence while Jack considered the pros and cons of allowing such a nonsensical whim out of their small son. Timothy was, of course, old enough, and quite responsible while compared to his peers. However she could see there was something hiding behind her son’s expressionless face, some hidden purpose that had nothing to do with advanced linguistics.

She opened her mouth to question said purpose when Jack shook his head.

“If it makes you happy, son,” he said reluctantly. “I agree with your terms.”

Janet narrowed her eyes and Timothy’s widened a millimeter.

“Thank you, father,” he said softly, that small, Jack-like dork-ish smile adorning his face.

The woman sighed.

“You will prepare and be ready by tomorrow morning or you will be left behind, Timothy,” she warned, shaking her head.

Timothy nodded.

“Thank you, Father, thank you, Mother,” he said evenly. “I shall start preparations immediately.”

Tim left towards his room, his back straight and his hands relaxed at his side. His mother’s heavy eyes were nailed to his back until he closed the door behind him.

Then, and only then, did he allow himself to relax and weakly sag against his wall for support, for any ounce of strength still left in his body.

“I did it,” he whispered to himself. “I did it.”

With a small, triumphant smile on his young face, Timothy Drake closed his eyes and allowed himself to dream.

——

As all things that seemed to go well for him, of course, his little escapade into the streets of Prague was doomed to fail by pure happenstance, as Tim would learn just three days later.

Just as he was rounding the corner in one of the city’s most unsavory neighborhoods the unfamiliar, yet still recognized, cold of steel against the nape of his neck forced him to stop in his tracks and an adult hand closed on his shoulder.

“Move, kid,” a voice said behind him, accompanied by a rough push.

Tim complied and wondered how he could alert Batman and Robin of his dilemma. They were, after all, in the same city, and would surely save him within seconds. They just had to know he was there. He would just bide his time and find a solution.

He was sure.

But then a hand had been pushed into his mouth, and the stench of ether was filling his nostrils and lungs and the world blackened before him as he lost consciousness.

Weeks passed and Tim slowly lost hope, while he knew his parents would know him gone in a year and possibly would even realize he never made it back to Gotham, he had at least hoped Batman and Robin would rescue him. Fat chance of that happening, however, considering he had heard from his captors that The Master’s Detective had left a few days after his capture. Plus he hadn’t been kidnapped because he was an American citizen, he was taken hostage because he was a child alone in the streets.

He could have been anybody.

And the purpose of said kidnapping, Tim shuddered, the purpose of stealing a kid right out of the streets.

A girl – twelve years old, underfed, of clear Asian descent – was pushed into his cell roughly, making her fall face first into the hard concrete flooring where she struggled to get up while her empty eye-sockets leaked tears. Another boy – ten, muscled, African – helped her out, uselessly trying to reach her arm with the stump in his arm.

Organ harvesting.

He was going to be stripped of all his organs and then disposed of.

He shivered, twistedly grateful that he hadn’t been a match for whatever this monstrous organization needed. He had been tested, prodded, fondled like a ripe fruit and then abandoned with the others to await his fate.

A fate that was yet to come.

He sighed, turning to the silent older girl sitting by his side when she placed a calloused hand on his arm, the only other untouched child in the cell. This one puzzled Tim quite a lot. She looked Asian, like many of the others, but there is a Caucasian-ness in her, in the way her muscles are defined in ways not normal for children, in the way her eyes are devoid of the yellowish tint that the others sport – liver failure, his mind supplies, his eyes will turn yellow as well if he stays with them long enough – how the harvesters will pass her over without a second glance, as if knowing she is off limits.

“Yes?” he asked in a whisper, his voice hoarse and throat dry, he was thirsty.

“Story,” she whispered back, eyes curious.

Tim nodded, trying to recall all the stories he had told her before and trying to come up with something different. He knew he was entertaining himself by teaching her English. By avoiding to think of the fate that awaited him. He liked to pretend it was one of the few things keeping him sane, but the way he didn’t flinch when the harvesters drag a whimpering six-year-old to die last night told him otherwise.

He shook his head.

“Where was I?” he asked finally, snuggling into her side for warmth.

She frowned for a moment, wrapping her arm around his shoulder.

“The bat…” she said softly. “Fly.”

“Right,” he whispered back, a small smile curling his lips. “Batman was ready to fly into the night of Gotham, to punish injustice and try to mend the wrongs he wasn’t able to stop before.”

“For…why?” she asked, blinking.

“Because,” Tim thought about it for a moment. “Because he is a good person? May he doesn’t want anyone else to suffer like he did.”

“Odd,” she commented.

“Not odd,” he sighed. “He just wants to live by example, help those that can’t help themselves.”

“He here?” she asked, staring at the other children curling into various sleeping positions on the floor.

Tim shook his head.

“He’s… busy?”

The girl accepted the explanation with a nod and urged him to continue. Tim did so, remembering the first time he saw the bright eyed boy who gave the warmest hugs and how his parents died because of a madman’s greed. He decides to tell his friend about him as well.

Cassandra rests her head against his, her eyes dropping in sleep.

“Wish he was here,” she said tiredly.

Tim snuggled.

“Me too,” he whispered back sadly.

It would only be two months until the cell fell and so did the organ smuggling operation. By then, Cass had been taken away by an older man who held a visible resemblance to her and he had felt that he would never see his friend again, only to find her running towards him with wide, maddened eyes and twisting the necks of the guards around their cell with expert fingers as she urged him and the other children to move, now2!

“The Head found out,” she told him urgently, tugging on his weakened hand. “We must go!”

Later on he would learn that the organs his captors had been harvesting were not for profit, but to replace an organ from another damaged member of The League of Shadows – a group of seasoned assassins – and that the leader of said League had not been aware of the project and was, understandably, appalled by his minions.

Orders had been issued to terminate any member of the league that had been involved in the project and to offer the mercy of oblivion to the children immediately and erase all trace of the building.

Which was the reason why Cass had defied her mentor, her own father – she would see his blood in her hands for years to come, dripping from her childish fingers as she pulled at the arteries in his neck – and dashed madly to get to her Timothy before the mercy squadrons could reach them. Before he was put down with the others in an act of liberation.

Together they ran, Cassandra pulling when Tim’s weakened knees failed and Tim’s intelligent blue eyes scanning each and every corridor, grabbing the supplies they might need to survive once outside the complex. Neither knew how they would leave, but both knew there was only one safe place for them to run to.

Gotham.

“NO!” a high voice cried, forcing Tim to pull his hand from Cass’ and turn. The girl glared at him with urgency, her legs shaking with exertion, shock, fright, and adrenaline? It didn’t matter; they had no time to waste.

“Hear that?” he asked, looking around.

“Tim!” she hissed, taking his hand and tugging him forward.

He struggled.

“Listen!” he hissed back.

“Let go!” the voice whimpered.

“Shut up!” a man growled. “I had to give my own little boy for this freak show. Lady should do the same!”

Tim’s eyes widened, his hand grasping Cassandra’s and pulling her towards the voiced only to find a man, the same one who often stopped by to sneer at them, forcing his foot against the small chest of a struggling toddler.

Tim’s hand clenched around Cass’, thinking of little Asian girl who had died of septic shock, and African boy whose kidney-less body failed agonizingly slow and just realized that maybe he wasn’t as cold and unfeeling as he had feared himself to be – or maybe, just maybe his mind was really slipping and he wanted to believe that by doing this he would appease the ghosts of the others, of the ones he couldn’t muster to care for – and before he knew it his hand was out Cass’ trembling hold and his arms were stretched to knock the offending man off the child, the few strengths left in him pushing the man to the ground, his fingers reaching to bash his head over the floor frantically.

“Tim!” Cass cried, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him off the unconscious man. “Enough!”

He turned to her, dazed, before forcing his hands to release the man’s bloody head.

“Cass,” he whispered.

“Child,” she said soothingly, the fright in her voice pulling him, grounding him.

“Right,” he said, blinking and turning to the gasping toddler staring at them with wide eyes.

“Are you okay?” Tim asked, approaching the boy and kneeling, checking his bruised chest, his trembling hands.

“Mother…” the child whispered, wrapping his arms around Tim’s waist and hiding his head in his stomach.

Tim blinked at Cass who just shook her head, frowning, before shaking her head.

“We go now, Tim,” she whispered urgently, offering her hands to them. “Please.”

Tim nodded, wrapping his own trembling limbs around the child and forcing his body forwards.

Adrenaline was a wonderful thing, Tim would muse once back in the safety of Gotham. The urgency, the strength and the power it had given him that night as they left the carnage of The League of Shadows behind, as he, Cassandra and the child had run from the reach of the Ripper and into a new life of possibilities, hiding from an unknown future to either of them.

For now, though, for now they traveled the crowded streets of Cairo with the determination of those who had seen death in the eye and refused to bow to its indomitable will. And with Cass’ hand in his own and Damian’s – yes, the child’s name was Damian, another child lost to circumstances and almost loss to family that wouldn’t bother to look for him just yet – little fingers clinging to the rags that were his clothing, Tim felt a sudden surge of purpose, of his new role, settling inside his small body.

This two were his now, if only by chance.

And he would protect them from now on.

As his hand slipped into a tourist’s pocket for cash, he wondered if Batman had once felt the same drive when faced with Dick’s heart break, with Jason’s sullen eyes, and was surprised to realize he couldn’t care less. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Not good,” Tim sighed, staring at his family.  Cass blinked back at him, tilting her head in confusion.

Damian did the same.

“Why?” she asked, frowning.

“For one, you are chipping the dishes when you stash them,” Tim explained, gently taking a delicate plate in his hands. “Plus, they are wet.”

“Not good?” she repeated, blinking.

“Nope,” Tim smiled. “And Damian is too small to be doing this; he might fall and hurt himself.”

“You had stool,” Cass argued, as if squirming three year olds are perfectly capable of washing their own dishes while on their tiptoes in front of an enormous sink full of foamy water.

Most likely to her it was.

“And I fell and almost drowned,” he shook his head. “Damian, get off that thing.”

Damian stared at his Cass and then at his Tim, frowning.

“I help,” he pouted. “You work, Cass work, I work.”

“Not like this, you won’t,” Tim frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

Damian’s lower lip trembled.

“I work,” he pouted and Tim felt immediately bad when tears pooled on those enormous blue eyes. “I work like you.”

“Damian…” Tim whispered, feeling the situation get out of his hands rapidly and knowing Cass was even worse than him at providing emotional support to the child – no wonder Damian followed Cass around when he wanted to imitate a strong character and still curled with him in bed and sought him out of cuddles… dysfunctional family union, they were – which was the main reason why none of them noticed the door of their home opening until a perfectly manicured hand landed on Tim’s shoulders, turning him around and making his pale blue eyes meet matching ones full of disapproval.

“Timothy,” Janet said evenly, raising an eyebrow at her son and his little companions.

Tim felt himself faint.

“Mother,” he whimpered, eyes locking on his father currently carrying their bags into their bedroom. “You two are back earlier than expected.”

“Study room, Timothy, now,” she replied, removing her hand from her son and walking towards the ornate wooden doors that marked her personal office/study room/sanctuary. “Jack, please make sure our guests are comfortable?”

“Ah… sure,” Jack replied, shaking his head at his son and already feeling sorry for the minutes ahead.

Cass instantly grabbed Damian’s hand and pulled him behind her, feeling comforted when the child’s hands instantly tightened on her t-shirt.

Jack blinked, trying to control the smile trying to escape his lips.

“Are you two hungry?” he asked.

“We ate,” Damian said scowling his best impression of Tim’s disapproving scowl. Cass swallowed.

“Thank you,” she whispered, nodding.

Jack just laughed.

“Sit down, Timothy,” Janet said as soon as her son closed the door behind him, her hand resting on the backrest of her favorite cream armchair. Jack often insisted her chair clashed horribly with the rest of the decoration of the house and Janet would instantly reply it was the whole point of the chair itself, she loved its oddness.

Tim gulped, sitting down and letting his legs dangle, he wasn’t tall enough for his mother’s ‘tacky throne’ as his father called it, which was the reason he never sat there without an express order form Janet. He felt small and vulnerable surrounded by his mother’s scent like this.

“You have a minute, Timothy,” she said simply, her eyes on the window.

Tim nodded.

“Damian and Cassandra… Cain,” Tim began, straightening his posture. “Are transfer students from Egypt, mother. The Mayor’s office called a few months ago asking whether we could house them for the time being and I thought it would be a great opportunity to foster PR for the company?”

Janet clicked her tongue, her ruby red nails resting on the window pane.

“Thirty seconds, Timothy,” she said. “And remember I am not your father.”

Tim’s shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry.”

“Twenty five seconds,” his mother reminded him.

“I was kidnapped while in Prague,” he sighed. “Organ harvesting group. Cassandra saved my life and Damian was all alone and… and… they have nowhere to go and… “

Tim hadn’t realized his whole body was shaking until his mother’s pale hand landed on his shoulder, her thumb resting over his pulse lightly before her fingers reached softly for his chin and forced him to look up.

He complied.

“Do you really want this?” she asked, her eyes once again piercing his own.

He nodded.

Janet studied her son for a moment, in silence, and then her fingers brushed the tears rolling down his cheeks away, her touch cold and efficient.

“We’ll call this your birthday present, then,” she sighed. “The real one at least.”

His eyes widened.

When they left the room, fifteen minutes later, they found Jack sitting in the kitchen isle trying to engage Cass and Damian in conversation and failing miserably, though he had managed to feed them cookies – more like Damian was devouring his portion while Cassandra watched over him like a hawk and Jack just babbled away – Tim instantly sat with his friends, wrapping his arms around Damian and resting his head on Cass’ shoulder under his mother’s watchful eye.

Janet shook her head.

“Cassandra, you will start school in two months, after Timothy is finished teaching you enough English,” she declared, rummaging through a cupboard. “Damian will go to a nursery school and the three of you will come home straight away until a new nanny can be found for you.”

Jack blinked, nodding.

“Also a saving account will be set for your needs, separate from Timothy’s. You will administer it, Cassandra, as you are visibly older than my son.” she continued, pulling a piece of old cardboard and a pen.

“Mother,” Tim whispered, still shocked.

Janet started to mark squared into the cardboard methodically, her eyes set with concentration.

“Timothy, you will oversee the hiring of your new nanny, and I expect monthly reports on each of your individual progress,” she said, staring at the three children. “For this, however, you have lost the privilege of knowing when and at what time we will come home and, therefore, will have to keep the household spotless and running at every time.”

“That sounds reasonable enough,” Jack agreed, nodding. “You shouldn’t have lied to us, Tim.”

Janet smiled a viper smile as she handed her project to her husband for his inspection.

Jack grinned and started writing himself.

“If any of these conditions is not met, your friend will be turned back to their countries of origin, no questions asked,” Janet stated. “Is that clear?”

Tim nodded, his lips trembling in the effort to avoid smiling.

Cassandra nodded as well, wrapping her arms tighter around him.

Damian stared at them both before he nodded as well, hiding his face on Tim’s side.

Janet nodded her satisfaction.

“Well,” Jack beamed, turning the piece of cardboard around for the children’s inspection. “Here you go, your chores for the following month or so.”

All three children stared at the list carefully compiled which switched dishes and cleaning around between Cass and Tim himself, while Damian was appointed with watering the plants and polishing of all tables he could reach without the use of the stool, plus the picking of laundry that would, weekly, be washed by Tim and then hung out by Cass.

With a small smile of fondness, Tim read it out loud for the other two.

“I work?” Damian asked, his eyes wide.

“A very important job,” Tim assured, his hands carding through Damian’s hair.

“Fundamental,” Jack agreed with mock solemnness.

Cassandra nodded, instinctually trying to imitate Janet’s posture.

“We’ll stay a month this time, Tim,” Jack informed, wrapping an arm around his wife’s small waist and grinning when she nodded. “Until we are sure everything is set and your little pals are settled.”

Tim eyed his parents with the detached fondness of a child.

He knew his mother usually would make the call in most decisions the couple made, but he was also sure Jack would not allow them if he didn’t trust his wife’s judgment. They were not like the loving families that appeared on TV or books, his parents did not hug him or kiss him goodnight, they would never laugh or encourage the usual silliness of childhood.

They, however, were displaying their love by trusting him.

It was almost moving.

Tim turned to Cass and Damian and, for the first time since their little adventure started, realized he would not have made it alone, but with his parent’s detached, mature support, he might just do it.

He smiled shyly, a perfect mix of Jack’s happy grins and Janet’s polite curl of the lips.

“Plus,” Jack continued obliviously as Cass ushered Damian to the restroom to wash his hands. “I think it was a great call, Tim, I’m sure your little Damian will be better here that with that Wayne fella.”

Janet and Tim blinked at Jack, confusion clear on their faces.

“Wayne… fella?” Tim asked hesitantly.

Janet raised an eyebrow.

“What does Wayne have to do with this?” she asked at the same time, frowning.

Jack blinked back at them.

“I thought it was obvious,” he said, tilting his head. “The kid’s the splitting image of Bruce Wayne from the days we went to school together. He’s his illegitimate, right?”

Janet eyed the restroom door pensively while Tim felt dread pool at the pit of his stomach.

No wonder his little charge’s eyes were so familiar.

Crap. 


End file.
